


Queen and King

by Melime



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Community: femslashficlets, F/F, Marriage of Convenience, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 07:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10827072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime
Summary: Elissa actually believed they could make a difference, that was what her arrangement with Alistair was all about.





	Queen and King

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Rainha e Rei](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10827075) by [Melime GreenLeaf (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime%20GreenLeaf)



> Written for the [femslashficlets](http://femslashficlets.dreamwidth.org/) community, challenge #033 - queen.

Elissa actually believed they could make a difference, that was what her arrangement with Alistair was all about. She never wanted power for the sake of power, she wasn’t like her mother, who only cared about increasing the status of the family, and she had never even dreamt of being Queen before Alistair’s proposal. Of course, she hadn’t known about Alistair’s feelings then, or she would have rejected him, but he didn’t frame it quite like a marriage proposal, more like a chance to continue working together to help people. She knew Alistair didn’t want to be King and had no experience in leadership, so it made sense that, if he had to take a noble wife, he would choose someone he knew, someone he could trust. They were friends, and that was it, or so she thought.

She fell in love with Leliana so early on that she couldn’t even remember when Leliana stopped being just an ally. Elissa’s mother wouldn’t approve, she would never allow her daughter to marry someone who wasn’t a noble of a higher or equal house to her own. Not that Elissa cared about that, she had given up on meeting her mother’s expectations a long time ago. She loved Leliana, that was all that mattered, and she wanted to be with her.

Leliana agreed with the plan to make Elissa Queen, although with a bit of hesitation. She suspected that Alistair’s feelings for Elissa weren’t what they seemed. But the plan was still good, they could do a lot for the people as King and Queen, and Leliana would be right there with her every step of the way, so it seemed that everything would be fine.

Elissa honestly believed that Leliana would one day get to Divine, albeit one day in the distant future, and she thought the three of them could make so much good still, that their journey wasn’t over yet. The Hero of Ferelden, the love of her life, and her best friend, just not in the configuration that everyone seemed to expect. She was naïve to the point of thinking that everything would be fine now, and that they could all work together, that was the kind of person she was.

They should have suspected this wouldn’t work from the moment Morrigan suggested the dark ritual. That was when her relationship with Alistair took a bad turn. Perhaps before that he thought there was still a chance of them one day being together, or perhaps being asked to sleep with a woman he hated and have a child with her, only to condemn that child to have a cursed soul, was too much for his loyalties.

But he still asked Elissa to marry him and be his Queen, even though he knew she and Leliana planned to keep traveling together, and he appealed to her sense of duty, convincing her that this was how she would be able to make the most good.

They could have been good for Ferelden, they could have made a difference. It wasn’t the same as saving countless lives during the blight, but it had the same potential to help people. That was all Elissa ever wanted, to help people, to be better than her parents. But they ended up fighting for so long they couldn’t actually do anything.

Leliana spent every night in the castle with her. It wasn’t the plan, at first. Leliana didn’t want to live there, but Elissa needed her there, especially because her arrangement with Alistair wasn’t working like she hopped. But Leliana’s presence there only made Alistair angrier at Elissa. He wanted something of her she couldn’t give him, and, since she believed the best of people, she truly believed that Alistair didn’t resent her on purpose, that he just couldn’t control his feelings, and that they could work through things and remain friends. She was wrong. He wasn’t a bad person, but he wasn’t a good King either, and that, allied with marrying a woman he loved knowing that she would never love him back, was simply too much for him.

They could have accomplished so much, truly changed things for the better for the people of Ferelden, but all they ever did was fight, to the point that Alistair would fight her on policies that would be positive just because it was her suggesting them.

One day she realized that this was never going to work, and that she was doing more harm than good as Queen of Ferelden. This wasn’t what she hoped to do, and it seemed pointless to subject all three of them to such misery if that wasn’t going to help anyone.

It was the middle of the night when she and Leliana left, she thought it would be easier on Alistair like this, he was still her friend, after all, and she cared about him. She left him a note explaining everything, even though she knew it wouldn’t be enough, nothing she could say would ever be enough, but it was all she could offer.

Elissa wasn’t like her mother. She didn’t want power for power’s sake, and she most definitively wasn’t willing to be trapped in a loveless marriage like so many women in her family. For her, it was easy to walk away from the crow, to walk away from everything. She had Leliana with her, and that was all that mattered.

The two of them could still make some good, just of a more localized kind, and not as generalized as it could be if she was changing policy and law as Queen. And now that she was no longer trapped in the castle, she could try to find a way to free the wardens of the taint, thus saving them all from a premature death in the Deep Roads. It wasn’t the initial plan, but it was still a good one, and at least now she didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t in love with Leliana.


End file.
